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Old 10-29-2017, 05:31 PM   #361
JohnGalt1
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The fact that betting on track was even with 2016 totals is understandable.

If my home track that I attended in person raised take out rates, I wouldn't like it, but I would play it, and don't blame those who do.

Another group I'd give a pass to is the minuscule betters who don't affect handle, i.e. the $20-30 a day players. I know many of these add up, but if 1000 of these bet, their total is only $20-30k.

A poster on HRI wrote he would've bet $2 on a horse that paid about $25 and was angry because he boycotted the track. He should've made that bet without a raspberry from me in my opinion.

The real question to ask that person is if he was boycotting the track why did he even handicap the card or that race?

My boycott cost the track 0-$800 per day. Zero if I handicapped the card and skipped all the races. Today I bet $455 at Woodbine and $255 at Santa Anita, is about average for me.

I'm a salesman, and one thing I've learned 40 years selling for different companies, is that customers don't buy based on features, they buy based on benefits. How does this product or service benefit the consumer?

When my home track, Canterbury, lowered take outs on all bets last year, I spoke with the track handicapper I told him I was a salesman and suggested he explain how the take out decrease benefits the better by comparing the 2016 pay outs to what it would've paid in 2015. Any body watching from other parts in the country would also be informed.

I suggested he should explain that the $400 exotic on this race would've paid about $360 in 2015. And he should do this before every race and on the pre-race show the following race day, he should review all the large exotic pay offs like the pick four.

After I made the suggestion, he thanked me and went in the elevator down to the paddock for the next race.

Do I have to mention that he or any one else ever used my suggestion on the handicapping show or before any race?

The feature is the take out decrease, the benefit to the customer is MORE MONEY IN THEIR POCKETS, which should have been explained to the customers, or in other words sold to the customers.
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Old 10-29-2017, 06:01 PM   #362
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Originally Posted by thaskalos View Post
As a "non-gambler"...you do realize that you contribute nothing of substance to this game...right? And yet...you presume to accuse those of us, who actually help the game along by betting, of being overly critical when we complain about the sorry state that our game currently finds itself in.
if you want to put it that way, since when has gambling been anything but a vice? You can't embarrass me about not gambling away my hard-earned money.

I'm sorry if you can't deal with someone putting up more to the convo than being a cheerleader. There's nothing I buy that I don't wish was cheaper either.
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Old 10-29-2017, 07:47 PM   #363
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do you honestly think a little purse cut is going to stop these guys from coming to Keeneland or other places? this is the sport of kings, the kings are still going to race, but with purse cuts they may not be showing up with 2 or 3 horses in the races giving someone else a chance.
Lambo is it "cut purses in half and then more..." or "a little purse cut"?

I do think this is an interesting question. Thalheimer's study from years ago, which I believe Jeff P was kind enough to link (much) earlier in this thread, suggested handle was relatively inelastic to purse levels. That study was from 1998, and my guess is that this relative inelasticity has only increased since then. If you look at Gulfstream both Championship meet and rest of the year, and Laurel especially the Fall/Winter meet, seems like players are just as happy playing a 12 horse field of $7500 claimers going 5 1/2 furlongs on the grass as they are playing an 8 horse $100k stake. You can effectuate a purse cut by running fewer high-end races. So you keep the purse structure largely in place, but run a slightly higher proportion of cheaper races. As long as these races attract full fields, and you maintain a relatively high standard of quality, that should be a net bottom line positive.

Not sure what others think, but in my view over the past 20 years or so Saratoga's overall quality has generally declined. Minimum claiming prices are lower and they run more maiden-claimers, NYB, turf sprints, etc. However, that has not really affected my view of Saratoga as the premier meet because there is sufficient quality in place so my view hasn't changed.

This model doesn't quite work when you're talking about quality checks on automobile brakes or existence of eColi in ground beef but it works ok for racing in this era.
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Old 10-29-2017, 11:11 PM   #364
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Originally Posted by alhattab View Post
Lambo is it "cut purses in half and then more..." or "a little purse cut"?
......If you look at Gulfstream both Championship meet and rest of the year, and Laurel especially the Fall/Winter meet, seems like players are just as happy playing a 12 horse field of $7500 claimers going 5 1/2 furlongs on the grass as they are playing an 8 horse $100k stake. You can effectuate a purse cut by running fewer high-end races. So you keep the purse structure largely in place, but run a slightly higher proportion of cheaper races. As long as these races attract full fields, and you maintain a relatively high standard of quality, that should be a net bottom line positive.
I pulled two random charts from GP winter meet. The first one is from Feb 11(a very modest Sunshine million day for Fl breds), the pool was $14M.

The second one was from Feb 4(FOY day), the pool was $26M.

Would you care to enlighten me and point a single day during GP Summer/Fall meet when they run $15k claimers, that can attract pools like that.
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Old 10-30-2017, 12:21 AM   #365
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Originally Posted by Fager Fan View Post
if you want to put it that way, since when has gambling been anything but a vice? You can't embarrass me about not gambling away my hard-earned money.

I'm sorry if you can't deal with someone putting up more to the convo than being a cheerleader. There's nothing I buy that I don't wish was cheaper either.
This is bullshit. I can't speak specifically for anybody but myself but my betting is not a vice. That is where your inexperience is plain wrong and it is you who do not understand what in the hell you are talking about precisely because you don't have either the ability, wherewithal, or plain balls to play for years on end. Suffering through hard work and attaining mediocrity much of the time sure but not degenerate vice. You don't get the luxury of preaching to this crowd. I can embarrass you about being a pure chump and kissing the tails of the insiders in this game! Your kind is a dime a dozen. About any 1 horse I might not know about but I feel perfectly confident I know as much if not more than any of the azzholes you go around worshipping in this game. It is precisely your mentality that makes this game winnable. You are the sultans of the race game. You ride the nuts of connections into oblivion. And that is why winning is unfathomable to you!
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Old 10-30-2017, 08:26 AM   #366
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Originally Posted by linrom1 View Post
I pulled two random charts from GP winter meet. The first one is from Feb 11(a very modest Sunshine million day for Fl breds), the pool was $14M.

The second one was from Feb 4(FOY day), the pool was $26M.

Would you care to enlighten me and point a single day during GP Summer/Fall meet when they run $15k claimers, that can attract pools like that.
Sure Linrom. Sorry if I wasn't clear- I wasn't suggesting GP summer and championship meet are equals- they clearly are not in so many ways- nor that big days like FOY day don't draw more attention and wagering. What I was trying to say was that wagering does not seem to be overly sensitive to the class (i.e., purse) of a particular race. A few illustrations always help in making a point.

Not sure what days you were looking at- they ran the Holy Bull on Feb 4 and Feb 11 featured the GP Handicap, but I took a look at those days and there are a few useful examples:

2/4
R8 was a $25k Maiden-claimer going 1 1/16 on the grass with a $23k purse. 12 horse field. Handle on that race excluding multi-race exotics was $1.5 million. Same day R11 was the Sweetest Chant stakes for $100k going 1mi on the grass. 9 horse field. Handle on that race again excluding multi-race exotics was about $1.75 million.

2/11 R10 was the Gulfstream Park Handicap with a $350k purse with 9 runners going 1mi on dirt. Handle excluding multi-race exotics was $1.6 million. R11 was a $16k claimer with 12 runners going 7 1/2 on the turf for a $23k purse. Handle on that race again excluding multi-race exotics was about $1.3 million.

3/4/17 was FOY day and for sure the FOY handle was much higher than any other race on that card, which I think most of us would expect. But there are a few other races that help illustrate the point. Races 7-9:

R7 was the Very One Stakes going long on the grass for $150k. 6 horse field, handle $1.4 million. R8 was a MSW for $46k going 7F on dirt. 13 horse field, handle $1.8 million. R9 was the Palm Beach going long on the grass for $100k. 9 horse field, handle was $1.8 million.

So there is no question you have to have a high quality product to attract the most wagering dollars. That is one reason why the major tracks attract so much more $ than minor tracks. But within the quality offering the are more subtle ways to "cut purses". In these examples the lower-class races offer horseplayers quality in ways other than class of horse, and the handle relative to purse sizes is not appreciably affected.
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Old 10-30-2017, 09:01 AM   #367
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To me, it's the increase at Belmont and Santa Anita that shows some people at least took their money elsewhere and it wasn't the weather (or whatever) that was the determining factor. At a time when handle is largely flat, it's unlikely those tracks would suddenly jump up that much while Keeneland simultaneously falls. Okay, fine.

The question is, where do we go from here? I've seen some "solutions" suggested on the last few pages----well, we're not cutting purses in half, we're not rolling takeout back to 10%, and while we might have Keeneland's attention they're at least pretending not to notice the handle drop...so what good did it all do? We made our voices heard and no one is listening.

The problem with Kentucky Downs as a example is that it's such an outlier. It's an extremely short, all-turf meet. Track management can look at its huge increases in growth and point out that they can't run 10 turf races a day, and can't replicate those field sizes, and they can't. So how do we convince anyone to substantially cut takeout?
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Old 10-30-2017, 09:16 AM   #368
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To me, it's the increase at Belmont and Santa Anita that shows some people at least took their money elsewhere and it wasn't the weather (or whatever) that was the determining factor. At a time when handle is largely flat, it's unlikely those tracks would suddenly jump up that much while Keeneland simultaneously falls. Okay, fine.

The question is, where do we go from here? I've seen some "solutions" suggested on the last few pages----well, we're not cutting purses in half, we're not rolling takeout back to 10%, and while we might have Keeneland's attention they're at least pretending not to notice the handle drop...so what good did it all do? We made our voices heard and no one is listening.

The problem with Kentucky Downs as a example is that it's such an outlier. It's an extremely short, all-turf meet. Track management can look at its huge increases in growth and point out that they can't run 10 turf races a day, and can't replicate those field sizes, and they can't. So how do we convince anyone to substantially cut takeout?
I gave one idea which I didn't think was a bad one: follow up on this with an open invitation that the next track which cuts to x, x, and x will get the handicapper's support, and do the same you did with KEE in reverse.

Otherwise, can tracks look at those with the lowest takeouts and see evidence that handicappers support that product? Or do the other variables come into play whether handicappers play those races/tracks?

In the article that announced their increase, it was noted that CD increased several years earlier to much outrage yet their handle has gone up each year since. You all punished KEE while betting tracks with similar or higher rates.

Last edited by Fager Fan; 10-30-2017 at 09:21 AM.
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Old 10-30-2017, 09:32 AM   #369
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Finley goes to bat

Simple message in the Thoroughbred Daily News today. Your handle went down, your revenue likely went down, and what you tried didn't work, so reverse the decision.


http://www.thoroughbreddailynews.com...-did-not-work/

Quote:
Keeneland’s next move seems obvious. They should announce that they tried something, it didn’t work out as they had hoped and, therefore, the takeout level at the 2018 spring meet will return to the same levels that it was pre-increase. If nothing else, that would be a PR home run and turn the hats they have been wearing lately from black to white.


Let’s hope they don’t instead try to spin this as an experiment that did not work due to mitigating factors and one that deserves another chance. The 2016-versus-2017 numbers are apples to apples. And, if anything, all things being equal, the handle should have gone up. The main factor that drives handle is field size and the fields were larger at the 2017 fall meet than they were the year before. Keeneland averaged 9.2 starters per race at the meet as compared to 9.1 last year. While that’s a very small increase, it shoots down any arguments that handle was affected by some bad weather or some races coming off the grass.
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Old 10-30-2017, 11:12 AM   #370
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Simple message in the Thoroughbred Daily News today. Your handle went down, your revenue likely went down, and what you tried didn't work, so reverse the decision.


http://www.thoroughbreddailynews.com...-did-not-work/
I agree that they should reverse their decision but I doubt that actual revenue went down. It was probably a wash or a slight increase. Although the negative publicity and ill will probably wasn't worth it.
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Old 10-30-2017, 11:29 AM   #371
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I agree that they should reverse their decision but I doubt that actual revenue went down. It was probably a wash or a slight increase. Although the negative publicity and ill will probably wasn't worth it.
But it wasn't by their formula=raise takeout=higher purses=bigger fields=better betting=higher handle. It should have been a precipitous rise by their theory. It should have ushered in greatness. But it didn't. It dropped. Not huge but compared to the "Greatness" projections the drop is significant. They can say and believe what they want but their strategy clearly did not work. And I am not digging at you personally.
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Old 10-30-2017, 11:32 AM   #372
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I agree that they should reverse their decision but I doubt that actual revenue went down. It was probably a wash or a slight increase. Although the negative publicity and ill will probably wasn't worth it.
Bill Shanklin on his Business of Racing website said before the meet if it fell more than 8.1% they'd lose money. I don't know where he got that figure.

Regardless, I hope we can get away from the short term revenue narrative. When Italian racing raised the juice they made money for a couple of years; now they're blockbuster video. Ditto with the "$200M for purses" estimates in California post 2010 takeout hike. Last I checked, revenues (not adjusted for inflation) were down quite a bit from pre-takeout hike levels, which is what should happen when your handle chart looks like it does.
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Old 10-30-2017, 11:53 AM   #373
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Bill Shanklin on his Business of Racing website said before the meet if it fell more than 8.1% they'd lose money. I don't know where he got that figure.

Regardless, I hope we can get away from the short term revenue narrative. When Italian racing raised the juice they made money for a couple of years; now they're blockbuster video. Ditto with the "$200M for purses" estimates in California post 2010 takeout hike. Last I checked, revenues (not adjusted for inflation) were down quite a bit from pre-takeout hike levels, which is what should happen when your handle chart looks like it does.
You're much more informed than I am, I defer to your expertise. Hopefully they return to former levels.
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Old 10-30-2017, 12:18 PM   #374
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You're much more informed than I am, I defer to your expertise. Hopefully they return to former levels.
I don't know anything more than you do Ronnie. It's just maddening that some tracks do things like hike prices for some sort of short term revenue bump, then in five or ten years blame handle losses and falling revenue on online poker, lotteries or whatever else comes to mind.
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Old 10-30-2017, 12:32 PM   #375
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I believe that if they reversed the decision for the spring meet, not only would handle return, it would explode. Bettors would feel they accomplished something and want to support the product. It is almost a no brainer, can't lose decision. Imagine the fanfare they would receive if people thought Keeneland actually heard them.

But since it is horse racing, I'm not optimistic.
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